Association of Polymorphisms in Stress-Related TNFα and PY Genes with the Metabolic Syndrome in Han and Hui Ehnic Groups

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a cluster of complicated disorders caused by the interactiveinfluencing factors of heredity and environment, which predisposes to many cnacers. Results from epidemicresearch indicate that stress is tightly related to the pathogenesis of MS and neoplasia. This paper aims toinvestigate the association between psychological stress and MS with respect to the tumor necrosis factor alpha(TNFα) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) genes in the Han and Hui ethnic groups.
Methods: All subjects for this casecontrolstudy matched strict enrollment criteria (nationality, gender and age) and lived in the city of Wu Zhongof Ningxia Province in China. The enrolled group contained 102 matched pairs of Hui ethnic individuals and 98matched pairs of Han ethnic individuals. Enrolled subjects completed the general Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). The TNFα-308G/A variant and NPYrs16147 polymorphism were detected in case (81 males, 119 females)and control (81 males, 119 females) groups by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification.
Results: Ninefactors of the SCL-90 were found to be statistically different (p<0.05) between case and control groups. Thehomozygous mutant genotype (AA) and the mutant allele (A) of the TNFα-308G/A gene were less frequentlyobserved in the control population compared to the case group. The odds ratio (95% confidence interval) in“Allele” for MS was 2.28 (1.47–3.53), p=0.0001, while “OR” was 1.11 (0.83–1.47), p=0.15, for the NPYrs16147gene polymorphism.
Conclusions: Psychological stress has been positively associated with MS. A previous studyfrom our group suggested there were differences in the level of psychological stress between Hui and Han ethnicgroups. Furthermore, we found that the stress-related TNFα gene was associated with MS for both Han and Huiethnic groups. In contrast, NPY may be a possible contributor to MS and associated cancer for the Han ethnicgroup.